another sign the economy could be improving. just released a report showing that sales of new homes jumped again in august. but let's quickly take a look at some of the other encouraging numbers that have recently come out. home prices in 20 major cities have gone up for the past three months. consumers are spending me. one example, 3% more spent on household goods compared to 2010. gas prices are down. still expensive. the national average at $3.83 a gallon. now let's break down the new home sales report to see if we actually should be jumping up and down in the streets. christine romans is here. what do the numbers say? >> jumping up and down in the streets. you should be trying to refinance your mortgage. we have 373,000 new home sales. these are new homes so as i told you before, every new home is a construction worker, a roofer, a plumber. it's a lot of economic activity because you're building that house from scratch. 1,000 better than the prior month but not exactly as much as wall street had been hoping for. they've been